Suppresion of Women's Rights: Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

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Women’s rights are consistently suppressed in Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” while in Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart”, the powerful Mother of the Spirits is revered and her daughters beaten and persecuted because of their gender. These authors were vividly depicting the reality of the repression of women during this time period. They exploit the vulnerabilities of women by criticizing all of their stereotypical feminine qualities. To be called a “woman” is among the utmost offensive insults spewed upon the feeble and meek.

In “Heart of Darkness”, the story is told through the voice of Charlie Marlow, a skeptical and prejudicial white man. In fact, all of the characters, including major and minor, narrator and protagonist are all white European men (Smith xx-xx). The underlying limits against women in this society are very evident in the narrator’s lack of understanding and emotional detachment. Ellen Rooney describes these portrayals of women as the “masculine ‘narrative of femininity’” which uses “stereotypes of woman and women” in order to affirm “patriarchy’s many stories” about femininity, masculinity, and power relations (73)(Smith xx-xx).

Without any names recorded in Conrad’s book, women are known only in relationship to man. For example, the semi-important women characters are known as “the intended” and “the mistress”. “The intended”, is so identified because of her relationship to Kurtz’s as his future (or intended) fiancé. “The mistress” is Kurtz’s African lover whom he is cheating on “the intended” with. Marlow doesn’t even grace these women with the simplest of all courtesies: referring to them by name. They are too inferior and insignificant to deserve such respect. The mistress and the i...

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